Tag Archives: black

The days are getting shorter, I am getting older, and there are many paintings to finish. Recently I have dove head first into the abstract expressionism, as I have some things I need to express. This is where I started, abstract, black and white, which I was exposed to by the likes of Franz Kline and the New York School of Abstract. I related to their work and began to study their work in books, on the Internet, and museum visits in New York. At times there is a conflict inside of me between the rational and irrational, black and white, similar to an ocean, it is dynamic, always in flux. There is emotion that as a man often times gets blocked out of the necessity to survive the day to day, and the need to keep it together in real life. Even in the studio I am often concentrating on specific artwork and subject matter. I have developed a tendency to block my personal life from my work. In some ways I lose myself in my work and forget about the life stuff that weighs on my shoulders. I decided recently to challenge that rule, and let some of that stuff out. This is the content for my new minimotion which offers a glimpse into the beginning of an expressive painting. I hope you will enjoy it.

minimotion

‘b&w’ with soundtrack ‘working out some stuff’ featuring a expression sesshin in the studio recently, a painting on recycled cardboard as my substrate, which is a metaphor as much as an environmental choice, painting yet to be titled🕶

‘forest wolf’ a painting WIP started out as a live painting that I have now been working on in the studio. I introduced a subject similar to one from a mural called ‘Creator’ see below for that reference.

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This is my mural called ‘Creator’ made a couple years ago, I decided to incorporate a similar sunpbject into my new painting above.

These are what I would call Maui spirit murals. I made these in succession of one another over a period of 2 months while on a sojourn to Maui. How they came to be is a little diffucult to explain as I had not planned to do any murals while I was there, so for all intensive purposes they were the workings of ‘the Universe’. Certain things just aligned that I could not have planned for, doorways opened and I walked through them.

fotoMahaloness

Indoor trickster spirit protector mural c.2012

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Maui Dreamtime mural c.2012

Hookipa spirit mural c.2012, painted at night during a new moon, it was pitch black and there were some very strange sounds coming form thr ocean that night, one of the most exhilirating painting experiences of my life. This mural lasted one day before being painted over, life is impermanent.

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Bliss moment on the walk home after completing the Hookipa spirit mural.

‘Heart anger refers to approaches in which openly expressed anger and compassion consciously and beneficially coexist…Heart-anger is anchored both in full-blooded aliveness and clear caring for the other. As fierce as it sometimes can be, heart-anger is but the emissary of wrathful compassion.’

Spiritual Bypassing -Robert Augustus Masters Phd.

Spiritual bypassing is not about denying the spirit, nor does it mean that spirituality doesn’t exist, it has more to do with the fact we suppress our anger, and in ways that one doesn’t even necessarily think about (including mediation, intellectualism and work). We live in a world where anger exists. We see daily examples of anger turned aggressive, anger turned into acts of terror and we immediately award hero status to the ones who ‘saved the day’ and suppress the underlying current ; the root to the core of the matter; the dark undercurrent, and we cannot just turn our backs on it, or shun it, or bypass it, or rise above it, and/or simply suppress it. In order to stop violence we must know what it is, and bombs, bullets, whatever the execution is to suppress the darkness of humanity , it seems that by now history provides a blueprint of how that works out. By embracing our anger we face fear, and we watch it and we learn from it. Seen through eyes of compassion and from the heart we illuminate the dread and the discovery might just be less drastic than if we just ‘move on’ from it, which has it’s own implications. These are just my thoughts, as far as I see it, the only way to mahaloness is through exploration, and darkness is one of a multitude of layers that one must navigate in order to be okay with being in this lifetime.

A dark poem

Heart of darkness
do I explore
unabashed
as I wonder through the mire
blackness cloaks hope
perceptions wane
anger churns
In a world built seemingly from vain
hidden demons
dressed in sequins
fooling only those who see surface
Breakthrough
unveiling
heart meets mind
understanding
turn sour grapes into delicious wine.